UCLA's Response to Wildfires: Research, Recovery, and Resilience

The wildfires that impacted the Los Angeles area spurred the UCLA community into action, addressing immediate needs and conducting research to mitigate future devastation. Faculty and students from various departments provided expert analysis, guidance, and hands-on assistance. The university's efforts spanned from environmental studies and urban planning to medicine, psychology, and engineering.

Immediate Response and Community Support

As the January wildfires neared UCLA’s Westwood border and impacted the lives of students, faculty, staff and large parts of Altadena and Pacific Palisades, the Bruin community sprang into action. From donating space at Research Park for the Disaster Recovery Center to staff members working to preserve trees in Altadena, faculty and students in nearly every field have been providing expert analysis, guidance and hands-on assistance. This included donating space at the Research Park for a Disaster Recovery Center and staff members working to preserve trees in Altadena. Over 1,000 UCLA community members volunteered at the FEMA center located at the UCLA Research Park.

Monitoring Wildlife Recovery

Trail cameras placed by researchers after the fires show bobcats, coyotes, owls and other animals returning to the Chaney Trail Corridor northwest of Eaton Canyon. UCLA researchers are taking part in the effort to monitor plant and wildlife recovery in the Chaney Trail Corridor, located Northwest of Eaton Canyon.

Engineering Solutions for Wildfire Mitigation

Faculty members and students from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering are developing research aimed at mitigating future wildfire devastation, including soil testing and hazardous waste safety. UCLA engineers are aiding L.A.’s wildfire recovery and addressing post-fire hazards. This includes assessing the removal of hazardous waste, toxic soil, and debris, as well as using AI in early fire detection.

Professor Sanjay Mohanty is testing soil for heavy metals, chemicals and other pollutants to help give residents peace of mind. His lab is offering free soil testing for fire-impacted L.A. homeowners.

Urban Water Supply and Wildfire Research

A new Urban Water Supply + Fire working group has been launched to strengthen water supply infrastructure, resilience and post-fire recovery. UCLA’s Climate & Wildfire Research Initiative is launching a new Urban Water Supply + Fire working group to address this critical issue. UCLA water and climate researchers provide comprehensive responses to questions about water for firefighting in urban environments. UCLA experts and colleagues provide answers to frequently asked questions about firefighting, water infrastructure, fire hydrants and more.

In the wake of the 2025 LA Wildfires, CWRI launched a new research and policy working group on urban water supply and wildfire dynamics. This working group is chaired by Greg Pierce, Co-Executive Director of UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation (LCI), in partnership with UC Agriculture and Natural Resource’s (UC ANR) California Institute for Water Resources. This collaborative effort aims to develop research and policy solutions to challenges related to water supply infrastructure, resilience, and post-fire recovery.

Health Impacts and Research

UCLA researchers team up with L.A. County Fire Department to investigate possible source of cancer risk. Firefighters have a 9% higher risk of a cancer diagnosis and a 14% higher risk of dying from cancer compared with the general population.

Smoke produced by California wildfires kills far more people than flames do, this research shows. Standard pollution largely stems from fossil fuels, wildfire smoke carries a mix of volatile organic compounds, benzene and heavy metals. The more frequently individuals are exposed to wildfire smoke, the higher their risk for long-term negative health outcomes.

David Eisenman, MD, and Arash Naeim, MD, established the UCLA Wildfire Impacted Communities Research Registry, where people potentially interested in participating in fire-related research can sign up. This rapid response initiative is sponsored by the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) which created a Wildfire Steering Committee comprising faculty and researchers from relevant disciplines.

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The Los Angeles Fire Human Exposure and Long-Term Health Study (LA Fire HEALTH Study) is a multi-institution, 10-year effort, to better understand the short- and long-term health impacts of the 2025 LA wildfires. The first part of the study assessed water, soil, air, ash and debris in the fire areas to identify toxins and pollutants present.

The Los Angeles Wildfire Exposure Study (LA-WES) aims to understand how toxic substances and social and economic disruptions from the Palisades and Eaton wildfires affect people’s health and well-being in the short term. The findings will help develop safety guidelines for communities in wildfire-prone areas.

Long-Term Health Effects

When patients and friends ask about the long-term health effects of the Los Angeles wildfires that killed 29 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures in January, David Eisenman, MD, isn’t sure how to respond.“I don’t know how to answer that,” he says, “because we don’t have the science.” He and other researchers at UCLA Health and beyond are pursuing those answers, but they need your help.

Anyone who is a Los Angeles resident should register for this if they’re interested in being contacted to be a part of future wildfire research,” Dr. Eisenman says. “You don’t have to have lived in the actual fire zone to have been affected. The smoke was carrying toxins miles away, and people might be interested to be part of research that includes that level of exposure.”

Signing up for the registry does not obligate participation in any research study. The registry will serve as a database of people potentially interested in future studies exploring how fire-related toxins affect the heart and lungs, metabolic health, mental health, cancer risk, pregnancy, early childhood and other possible health risks, Dr. Eisenman says.

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Finding answers as to what toxins are present in wildfire smoke and ash and understanding their impact on human health is “critically important,” he says: “We will regret not knowing the answers to this."

Mental Health Impacts

In addition to the exposure to toxic particulate matter (PM2.5) in wildfire smoke, there are myriad health impacts that should be more closely examined, including mental health impacts. People in evacuation zones saw a worsening of existing health conditions, alongside declines in mental health, said Dr. “We saw spikes in emergency room visits for lung problems, respiratory complaints and also for heart attacks,” Dr.

As part of a long-term study assessing the impact of guaranteed income on health, financial security, child development and more, researchers will survey participants to understand the fires’ direct and indirect impact on their well-being.

Economic Impact and Recovery

UCLA: L.A. wildfires caused as much as $164 billion in total property and capital losses. UCLA Anderson economists Zhiyun Li and William Yu say the fires could also cause a loss of $4.6 billion to Los Angeles County’s GDP. Reports from the UCLA Anderson School of Management place the total property and capital losses between $76 billion and $131 billion. At least 35,000 jobs held by Latinos were at risk of temporary or permanent displacement due to the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst wildfires, data show.

The Project Recovery roadmap - a comprehensive plan aimed at helping to guide Los Angeles-area rebuilding efforts in the wake of January’s wildfires - provides actionable recommendations to support a more resilient future. UCLA partners with Urban Land Institute and USC on roadmap for rebuilding after the L.A. fires.

Addressing Vulnerable Communities

Altadena’s Black community disproportionately affected by Eaton Fire, report shows. UUCLA study shows systemic inequalities and redlining practices contributed to fire vulnerability and impacts. La comunidad afro-americana de Altadena fue desproporcionadamente afectada por el incendio Eaton, según un informe. Un estudio de UCLA muestra que las desigualdades sistémicas y las prácticas discriminatorias contribuyeron a la vulnerabilidad y los impactos del fuego. Wildfires disproportionately impact Latino and other underserved L.A. communities, data shows. Los incendios forestales tienen un gran impacto en las comunidades latinas. Los datos muestran que los trabajadores latinos están más expuestos a sufrir enfermedades respiratorias y a perder ingresos durante los incendios. With significant language barriers in LA County’s Asian American communities, effective communication during disasters remains a critical challenge.

Tierra Bills, UCLA assistant professor of public policy and civil and environmental engineering, will lead a comprehensive literature and data review intended to better understand the mobility needs of communities with limited access to vehicles. More vulnerable during emergencies, these populations often include those who are low-income, people with disabilities and people with limited English-language proficiency. Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, will bring her experience studying travel needs of people who depend on public transportation to aid local transit agencies in improving evacuation response plans for transit riders. In partnership with LA Metro, Brozen will conduct a survey targeting LA County transit riders to identify gaps in emergency response efforts during and after the 2025 fires. Older adults and people with disabilities often face physical and cognitive challenges that make emergency evacuations particularly difficult. Yeonsu Song, UCLA assistant professor of nursing and medicine, will lead an interdisciplinary team in creating a research agenda and suite of policy recommendations for improving evacuation and resilience strategies for these populations.

This study analyzes the risk of extreme heat and wildfires on households living in manufactured housing, such as mobile homes, in California. This study finds that subsidized housing is less likely than other housing types to be in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) in both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas.

Community-Driven Disaster Recovery

Megan Mullin, faculty director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, will spearhead an effort to explore community-driven models for disaster recovery. Drawing on California’s Transformative Climate Communities program, the study will assess strategies for inclusive, neighborhood-scale rebuilding.

Megan Mullin spearheaded an effort to guide collaborative community engagement design for infrastructure rebuilding after the 2025 LA fires, based on experiences from California’s Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) program.

Transportation Planning and Infrastructure

Poor street connectivity can create significant safety risks during natural disasters, leading to delayed emergency response times and congested evacuation routes. Neighborhoods with the highest wildfire risk have the least connected streets, marked by dead ends and fewer direct walking routes. A race to rebuild transportation infrastructure post-disaster could preclude or increase the cost of other community-defined priorities that emerge during the recovery process. Yet collaborative community engagement processes are difficult to sustain in a post-disaster context.

In the wake of the LA fires, the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies is funding five rapid-response research projects, with results expected within one to three months.

Water Infrastructure and Management

How Have the LA Fires Affected Water Systems in LA County? In January 2025, LA County experienced multiple fast-moving fires that began as wildland events but quickly spread into residential areas, destroying homes and critical infrastructure. Do Urban Water Supply Systems Put Out Wildfires? As urban wildfires become more frequent and severe, what role can water systems realistically play in protecting lives, supporting emergency response, and guiding resilient rebuilding? A new report from the Luskin Center for Innovation, Water Systems’ Wildfire Fighting Capacities and Expectations, begins to answer this question. A report released today by UCLA-in partnership with LADWP-identifies four areas critical to strengthening water and power infrastructure to reduce risks and improve reliability as climate-related disasters intensify.

In addition to proposing new architectural models, several researchers are investigating why established water infrastructure systems proved insufficient during last year’s disasters. While the public often views these failures as alarming, there was no actual shortage of water in the LA region as a whole. This issue remains difficult to resolve because water distribution systems are fairly rigid infrastructures.

This report brings together insights from 23 water and fire experts to answer a critical question: How can California proactively protect its water supply from fires? By compiling and building on the results of a workshop, the report presents recommendations to help build an understanding of the complex relationship between fires and water systems.

Climate Change and Wildfires

L.A. fires: Vegetation 25% drier due to climate change. UCLA climate scientists’ analysis links climate change to about a quarter of the extreme vegetation dryness when the Palisades and Eaton fires began. “We also have this concentration of extremes where we get wetter periods as well, and that helps to lead to more vegetation more quickly,” Pierce said.

Historical Context and Future Preparedness

These conflagrations have become increasingly common in all corners of the globe, but in recent years their impacts in Southern California have become dramatically acute. In 2017 and 2018, the Thomas Fire and the Woolsey Fire devastated swaths of LA and Ventura Counties. Malibu and its surrounding area were hit with the Mountain Fire in late 2024, followed shortly after by a devastating outbreak of multiple fires throughout LA County in early 2025.

Southern California faces different challenges than the woodlands to the north when it comes to preventing and mitigating wildfires. This is a densely populated region with a high frequency of human-caused fires, spreading non-native vegetation, variable climate, and increasingly dramatic oscillations between wet and dry years. The unique chaparral ecosystems covering Southern California’s landscape are home to rich biodiversity.

Learning more about the health effects of wildfires is essential as Los Angeles rebuilds and looks toward the future, he adds.“We will be having wildfires again in Los Angeles. We will be experiencing smoke, whether it’s from Los Angeles or neighboring areas. We really need to get ahead of this and learn … how it’s affecting our health to improve our protections in the future,” Dr. Eisenman says.

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